Prieto looked calm as he entered the execution chamber at 8:53 p.m. The warden stepped behind the curtain at 9:09 p.m. and shortly afterward officials began administering the drugs.
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The issue drew anti-death penalty protesters to rally and have their voices heard in front of the Charlottesville City Courthouse.
In this undated photo provided by the California Department of Corrections, Alfredo R. Prieto is shown. The judge said an unwarranted delay of the execution would be harmful for those victimized by Prieto’s crimes, a harm “magnified here by the appalling number of people that Prieto has killed, raped, or otherwise injured”. “We have a choice, what we do speaks about us”.
The USA state of Virginia has executed multiple murderer Alfredo Prieto, rejecting last minute court appeals from lawyers for the Salvadoran man.
Attorneys for a death row inmate in Virginia are seeking to halt his execution by challenging the state’s use of lethal injection drugs obtained from Texas.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld without comment a ruling earlier on Thursday by federal District Judge Henry Hudson that lifted a temporary order halting the execution.
Authorities have linked Prieto to several other killings, but he was never prosecuted for them because he already had been sentenced to death. They said that further delaying Prieto’s execution and allowing him to “fully indulge his speculations” could prolong the case past the drug’s expiration date.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson on Thursday lifted an order blocking Alfredo Prieto’s execution, which is scheduled for 9 p.m.
Hudson said Virginia prisons officials had stored and transported the drug appropriately.
“It is time for this to end”, said Margaret O’Shea, a lawyer from Attorney General Mark Herring’s office, who urged the judge to dismiss Prieto’s appeal on Thursday.
But the case has been transferred to a new judge in Richmond and it’s uncertain what action he will take.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also rejected Prieto’s request to stay the execution because he claims he is intellectually disabled.
A temporary restraining order granted Wednesday that blocks the state from carrying out the execution remains in place.
They had contended that the pentobarbital lacked a sterility and potency test as well as documentation.
Virginia obtained pentobarbital from Texas to replace its supply of another sedative, midazolam, which expired Wednesday.
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Prieto was convicted in 2010 for the 1988 murders of Rachel Faver and her boyfriend Warren Fulton in Fairfax County, a Washington suburb. “It is time for the carousel to end”. The state has carried out 110 executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Prieto’s attorney has asked the court to halt the execution until officials disclose the supplier of the pentobarbital they plan to use.
